My Journey to Crossover Prep

CrossoverPREP

and more, as Crossover continues to flourish as it expands, experiencing God’s favor in every area, where people share their talents, time and treasure all motivated by Christ’s love.

My journey to Crossover should start with the decision to move back to Texas around 16 years ago. In 2002 I would start my life in the visual arts, still thinking often about that “what if” question – what if Crossover Prep was real? In 2003, Janice and I married (and I will focus on my story here because she tells hers better than I can, and hers is too incredible to truncate). I became a visual artist, a college professor, and one of several art instructors at an esteemed K-12 college prep school that developed an award winning, top visual arts program for students headed to elite universities and colleges.

When I interviewed back in 2002, it was mid-year. I did not want to work at Trinity Christian Academy because I was once a student there, and it was not what I had in mind for my ministry. I had forgotten that I was joining Jesus in His ministry, and that He had built up a short lifetime of stuff in me to share with others. There was also a number of unreconciled things in my past I did not want to deal with - better yet, I wanted them to just be a part of the past. I worried I had made the wrong decision.

The interview was extraordinarily nerve racking. It was a February morning, where I would step into a poby

David Michael Connolly

I It was the early 2000s on a weekend day, when Philip Abode, a mutual friend and I were talking about Crossover before it existed. I was a grad student at T.U., sad, and losing my closest friends as we were all about to go our separate ways. Some would leave for missions overseas, while others would go into education, business and local ministries across the U.S., and I would go into a visual arts ministry. All of us loved Jesus and wanted to serve him with our lives, and longed to do so together, even though we knew that to be a short-lived privilege.

During our conversation, I spent more time listening than talking. I was thinking to myself that it would be amazing if Crossover Prep existed – but how could it? Nobody does this, not in a city so bitterly divided by its horrible past, and an ensuing evolution of economic and academic inequality, and a powerful indifference it seemed to all but guarantee that Crossover would be a perpetual fantasy. I wondered if the concept had been tried before and failed, as to why it wasn’t already happening. A church, private school and community impact group in one, identified by how they love each other by meeting one another’s physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs intentionally, where all are regarded as Christ? Little did I know God was going to do these things

God had revealed to me then, that He had stored up good gifts in me to give away to my students and to my colleagues. God causes all things to come together...”

-David Connolly

My Journey to Crossover Prep

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sition vacated mid-year by someone who left big shoes to fill. He was a master teacher, a professor at a local college and famous visual artist, and a man I had known of since high school. He had taught one of my friends privately in the early 90s – someone who would go on to have a successful career as a filmmaker in New York. Alarmingly and unexpectedly, I would have to teach one of his classes on the spot, in front of him and my department chair. I was a green nobody full of zeal for Christ and a newly minted MFA with little teaching experience. I thought it had all the makings of a disaster, and I probably (to my relief – in my thinking just before I started) would not do well and not get the job, which I actually did not want. I started thinking of the bitter things of my past and thought, “What am I doing here?” I thought about all the prayers and requests of God’s Holy Spirit to guide me along the way, as I had given my life to Him and committed my plans to Him. I thought maybe I should have never come, because it would end up being painfully nostalgic. To my surprise, once I started teaching I was calm and instantly connected with the students. I knew it right then and there that it was what God had been preparing me to do. God had revealed to me then, that He had stored up good gifts in me to give away to my students and to my colleagues. I would also find out that God sent me back to reconcile with others and heal past wounds. He didn’t leave anyone or anything out. In the midst of everything, I thought, “God causes all things to come together”. God meets us along the way, all the while preparing us for destinations ahead if one is willing in one’s brokenness. And yet, I also knew I had a long way to go.

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Crossover

Scholarship Fund

These students are our future health professionals, social workers, teachers, policy makers, and military men—they are the future of our nation.

We must do more. And with your help we can. If you would like to learn more about the Crossover Scholarship Fund, please go to http://crossoverscholarshipfund.org.

Crossover Community Impact

That first year, I committed to the Lord my desire for personal excellence and expertise; to become someone who contributed to the department. I also wanted to leave it better than I found it, which in my mind took God because of the incredible place it already was before I showed up. I would spend the next several years educating myself, becoming a homegrown historian, grammarian, theologian, art critic, apologist and visual artist. I spent some time at the University of North Texas and Dallas Theological Seminary, working on a PhD in art education, and a Th.M. in Media, Arts and Ministry. Without noticing at first that this time was a crucial maturation time – a time of refinement, a clarifying of my passions and gifts in the visual arts, communication, teaching and discipleship for Crossover Prep young men.

Along the way, I would come to discover how critical a diverse and media specific art education is for budding young minds. At my former institution, we built a program that mirrored a fine art program that most universities offer, but age appropriate, and progressively sequential towards a thesis show in an area of interest to the student. Students would have so much more than exposure to art and art making – they would be immersed in a program that would not only broaden their horizons in art but in life and thinking skills, inviting them to be critical contributors to contemporary art conversations and to be independent thinkers, communicators and problem solvers. This process takes a long time but establishes a readiness for college unique to itself, as they are equipped with an awareness of their own creativity, how they are made in God’s image, yet with discerning minds. I would have to agree with Francis Schaeffer who said that the Christian’s imagination should soar above the stars – our program would enable just that, making it possible for our students to have a taste of what it means to love God with all their minds.

In all the time I had spent working towards this end, Janice and I had many conversations about doing this in Tulsa. Providing young boys who otherwise would never have a S.T.E.A.M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) education like this – would be a dream come true. While Janice and I were having these conversations, we also had been reading articles and been in conversation with friends about the wealth and education gaps in America, and how toxic inequality continues to ravage historic African American communities, with no way to close those gaps; unless people with means are willing to do things like relocate and use their skills and resources to help make that happen. We had known all along we wanted to be a part of that work. We then, together, felt a deep conviction to return to Tulsa to join Crossover in its work. Janice started work with CCI part-time last July. As of this summer, we are both full-time missionaries for Crossover.

My hope is that Crossover will become a prayerful, sober, and careful movement forward for children and families, a piecing together of a puzzle of excellence in talent, experience, intentionality, wisdom, love and a desire to see a reconciliation of God’s people in Tulsa, one child at a time, and I could not be more thrilled to play a small role.

David Connolly is a career minister, art educator and visual artist, with a passion for young men to know Christ, be reconciled to Him and find their strength and identity in His Spirit to become servant leaders for Christ among their friends, families, communities and the world, wherever God leads them.

If you would like to learn more about Crossover Prep Academy, please go to http://crossoverprep.org.